


A Is For Angels And Other Mythical Creatures

by mydogwatson



Series: A Baker Street Alphabet [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M, Pre-Slash, Sherlock muses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-18
Updated: 2013-10-18
Packaged: 2017-12-29 17:38:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1008191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mydogwatson/pseuds/mydogwatson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock waits to die and thinks about John.  And smiley faces.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Is For Angels And Other Mythical Creatures

**Author's Note:**

> These stories originally appeared in a zine I put out some months ago. While I appreciate the fifty or so folks who have read them, it has been pointed out that there are perhaps more people who would like to see them. So I have been convinced to post them here. The 26 tales are [duh] alphabetical, but not chronological. Pretend a blue police call box is dropping us down at various points in the lives of John and Sherlock. There is, however, a definite narrative arc that goes from A-Z. The plan is to post one a day. Sorry about these long notes! Hope you enjoy the stories.

…for thereby some have entertained angels unawares…  
-Hebrews 13:2

It aggravated him rather too much, considering the overall dreadful circumstances of his situation, that once he had regained consciousness almost ninety seconds [87.5 to be precise, which he always was, of course] had passed before he was able to discern where he was, what the complete blackness signified.

And even when he did eventually understand exactly what was happening, there was little comfort in the knowledge. For the first time in his life, he understood and almost embraced the cliché about ignorance and bliss. It would undoubtedly also be for the last time in his life.

The case was not supposed to end this way.

And neither was everything else, of course.

In retrospect [a place he rarely visited, as it implied he’d made an error originally], he probably should have waited for John Watson to return from his quick trip to Tesco’s [milk, beans, P.G. Tips], before running down the steps and out the door of 221 B Baker Street.

In his own admittedly weak defence, he had texted from the taxi.

The arrogance of the text would not surprise John at all. Any hint of humility would have shocked the hell out of him, of course.

//CASE SOLVED! THE REST IS ALL DETAILS. SH//

There was probably a reply sitting on his phone at this very moment.  
More than likely something along the lines of BRILLIANT! Or maybe AMAZING! A very John sort of reply. Possibly the message might even include one of those ghastly smiley face things that occasionally turned up in texts from his peculiar flatmate. Sherlock despised the bloody things with a white-hot hatred usually reserved for one of Andersen’s inane comments. Odd, then, that he would love to see one right now on a text. 

Not that Odd was a bad thing.

Sherlock understood very well that one significant reason his life had been as remarkable as it had in recent times was due to the fact that, although John also hated the smiley face as much as he did, [could the detective happily co-exist with someone who didn’t?] it sometimes appeared anyway. He only sent it so that Sherlock could moan. Apparently, John didn’t get enough of Sherlock whinging on a daily basis, which was surprising even to a man who was rarely surprised by anything.

Sherlock understood that his friend John was unique. Defined as being particularly remarkable, special, and/or unusual. Yes, that was John Watson.

Of course, in hindsight, that one fragment of the text—THE REST IS ALL DETAILS—could be seen as a bit misleading. More than a bit wrong even.

He knew John Watson very well and he was pretty sure that the other man would not consider Sherlock waking up in a coffin to be a detail at all.

No, thinking about it very carefully, he was absolutely certain that John would think this whole development was not so much a misleading detail, or any kind of a detail actually. Instead he would undoubtedly view it as a rather monumental screw-up.

At this moment, Sherlock could not really disagree with that. When John was right, he was right.

Almost idly, Sherlock began to calculate how much breathing time—well, living time [approaching death did not justify euphemisms]—he had left. It would have helped to know how long he had been here before waking up, of course. The thirty-six hours spent bound and gagged in the back of a filthy white van did not count in this calculation, although at the time the 2,160 minutes had seemed significant and much longer. Another stray thought appeared from somewhere. He was sure that those hours, minutes and seconds had seemed even longer to someone wondering where he was. Although he doubted that anyone else had bothered to do the exact calculations. Not in his mind, at least. Possibly in his heart. And Sherlock had absolutely no idea where that particular [and scientifically rubbish] notion came from either. Nevertheless he was absolutely convinced that 129,600 seconds probably seemed very long indeed when calculated in the heart.

Perhaps he should try to make a hole in the coffin.

An admirable solution and one that would give him at least a little more time, depending upon whether or not the coffin was actually buried. How much that extra time would actually be worth was an existential question he chose not to deal with at the moment.

The only real problem with such a plan was that his hands seemed to be rather effectively cuffed together. Behind his back.

Which no doubt explained the increasing numbness.

He had always heard that coffins were manufactured with a breathing hole built in. Just in case. That was probably only an urban myth, but one could always hope. He should have researched the topic while there was still time. In his own defence, [again? He seemed to be spending a lot of time defending himself, when actually he was the bloody victim here, right?] even the world’s only consulting detective couldn’t be expected to know everything that might one day prove critical to surviving the deadly attentions of the criminal class. He’d done his best and no one should be disappointed that in this instance he had fallen just a bit short of perfection. But somebody probably would be. Disappointed, that was. It wouldn’t be the first time, which wasn’t actually much of a comfort at the moment.

Not that Sherlock Holmes needed comforting. Ever. It was simply that one would rather leave something other than disappointment as his legacy. Admiration, perhaps. Amazement. Nothing as boring as disappointment.

Having now had time to give it some more thought, Sherlock realised that on balance it was probably a good thing that he had run off on his own to finish the case. Well, that had been the plan anyway. But regardless of how things had actually worked out, if he had not left the flat alone there might well now be two of them crammed inside this coffin and that would have been, well, problematic to say the least. The available air would have been exhausted twice as quickly with both of them sucking it up. He knew without any doubt at all that they would have shared it to the last gasp and for some reason, he liked knowing that very much. It seemed like the finest thing in the world.

But no, Sherlock decided then. Actually, he would have held his breath so that John could have his share of the oxygen as well. And since John was smaller, the air would have lasted longer. That would have been even better. The world needed a genuinely good man to be around for as long as possible. Also, if no rescue ever came and John died too, which seemed the most likely outcome, at least he wouldn’t have to see it happen.

So much fineness pleased him enormously.

He hummed a little melody he had been composing recently. John had remarked that it was more cheerful than his usual creations. When Sherlock frowned fiercely at that, John laughed aloud. “Only you,” he’d said, “would consider being called cheerful a vile accusation.”

Sherlock remembered smiling in response [not necessarily on purpose] and now he was glad about that. It would be something good for John to remember and he knew the other man would.

Yes, on the whole, it was much better that John was not here. For his sake.

Still, the company would have been very nice. One got used to having someone else around. Well, John. He was used to having John around. If only for the opportunity to bounce ideas at him and then have light reflected back. There was no light in here. In fact, Sherlock could not remember ever having less light than he had at the moment.

Sherlock felt a stab of anger, not at John, of course, or even at the bastard who’d shut him up in here, but at himself for indulging in such blatant sentimentality. No matter how solitary he felt right now, it was better that John wasn’t here. He didn’t deserve to die like this as well, no matter how…interesting the experience might prove to be. [And describing anything about this disaster as interesting would make John quite irritable.]

Now that thought took him back a bit, because for most of his life Sherlock Holmes, who had a rather ghoulish view of things [a generalized opinion of the world at large and one with which he could not honestly disagree], had envisioned leaving his life in some spectacular way. Like a shooting star streaking across the night sky.

That was actually one reason why he had given up the drugs. Od-ing on the floor of some squat in Hackney was not a spectacular way to die. It was the exact opposite of spectacular, in fact. It was disgustingly ordinary and the thing he had always feared most in his life was being ordinary. Admittedly, that had been before he so clearly understood the whole dying-in-the-dark-all- by-yourself-thing.

So going out in a blaze of glory had always been his choice, even as a child. Mycroft used to laugh at him for it. That was one reason why he’d stopped telling his brother anything. Only one of the reasons. There were so many others.

For some time now [How long exactly? Since the swimming pool? Since the really quite extraordinary shooting of the homicidal taxi driver? Since Mike walked into the lab at Barts followed by a ex-soldier with empty eyes and a second-hand mobile?], no matter when, at some point, the fantasy began to include John Watson. Death would be even nicer as perfectly timed twin explosions of light and flame and wonderment, Sherlock now thought on those days when he curled up on the settee and cogitated about dying.

Of course, he had never been foolish enough to share this brilliant idea of his with John. He kept it tucked safely inside his mind or maybe the idea was hidden his heart. [By the way, did dying invariably make people into sentimentalists?] Of course he was not supposed to have a heart at all, according to popular opinion. Except that there were two people in the world who knew that to be a lie. One very bad, really terrible person. And one very good person. The best of all.

He knew what would have happened had he ever dared to mention this notion of a shared grand conflagration and then oblivion. [As already noted, he knew the man.] John would have sighed, touched his upper lip with the tip of his tongue, and then said, very softly, so that if anyone else were around, only Sherlock would hear, “Bit not good.”

[Merely as an aside, he wondered why no one had ever mentioned that as one lay dying, life seemed to get increasingly parenthetical. Someone should do a monograph on the subject. Obviously it could not be him, no matter how brilliantly he would have managed it.]

Now that his death was so close, Sherlock decided it would be all right to break the habit of a lifetime and show himself a little mercy. Because, as it happened, he did know the truth, and he thought perhaps that very truth made his wonderful and bit not good idea just a little bit less unforgivable.

As it happened, the daydream was never actually about John dying at all. It was always about he himself dying at the same time John did. 

When you only had one friend, surviving him seemed an unnecessarily dreadful way to exist. Although he hadn’t realised it at the time, at least consciously, maybe that was why he hadn’t listened when John jumped Moriarty and yelled at him to run. Why on earth would he have obeyed? So that he would go on living while John was blown into little pieces? No, better to light up the night sky with flame and unbearable brightness and then slowly drift into the darkness together.

It was even possible that he was misjudging John’s reaction anyway. After all, hadn’t he nodded and given Sherlock permission on that same night to blow them both up, along with Moriarty, at the swimming pool? It was entirely conceivable that John [a soldier, after all] also dreamed of a death that was far from ordinary.

That was a question which undoubtedly deserved much more attention than he was going to be able to give it, unfortunately. Not to mention that it was a rather moot question now anyway.

Sherlock came to the conclusion that there had to be at least a small breathing hole in here somewhere, because otherwise he would already be dead. Maybe the bastard who put him in here just wanted to drag out the inevitable. That was the kind of thing people did to one another. Of course, if they didn’t mistreat, abuse, and kill one another on a regular basis, his career would have been decidedly limited, instead of brilliant. Well, brilliant with a few exceptions. Like this rather unfortunate ending.

But whoever had made the hole, and for whatever purpose, he was fully aware that it was only a short-term reprieve from death. Still, beggars and all that.

He had also deduced one more thing that seemed an unnecessarily harsh and final blow to his spirits. From the very faint scent that he had picked up, the unmistakable smell of damp earth, he knew that this coffin was definitely buried. Whatever little bit of hope he might still have harboured for some kind of rescue was rather efficiently extinguished.

So he might as well think about something else.

For example, the messages that were undoubtedly piling up on his phone right now. Whenever now actually was. 

It was not hard to guess at what the messages would say. Still, it was a game and he loved playing games.

// I’m home. Where are you?  
Details all taken care of?  
Do you need a hand with anything?  
Shall I get a takeaway?  
I’d like to help, you idiot.  
This has gone on long enough.  
No one has seen you.  
What’s going on?  
Sherlock, text me, pls.  
Text me now. Now, dammit.  
I’m starting to get worried.  
Bugger that. I’m worried.  
Sherlock. I…just…  
A clue? The note on the desk is not very helpful.//

Since repeated texts were getting no response, John would probably go to voice mail next, although what difference he thought that would make escaped Sherlock. Still, his intentions were good. Always.

//Sherlock, where are you? Call me.  
Call somebody. Send out a bloody  
carrier pigeon if you want.  
I’m trying to figure out the damned note.  
Lestrade and the others are not much help.  
Two days, Sherlock. Two fucking days.  
I know something is very wrong.  
You’re not dead. If you were dead, I’d know.  
All right, that sounds crazy. But I’d know.  
I just punched Anderson in his stupid face.  
Maybe you can hear this,  
but just can’t answer. If  
you can hear this, I will find you.  
I will find you, Sherlock.  
I promise.  
Believe in me.//

No doubt the messages went something like that. Well,   
except for the one about punching Anderson. That one was probably not actually there. Unless, of course, the idiot was even stupider than usual and said the wrong thing to John at a time like this. John, for all of his good qualities—calmness, loyalty and courage, among others--did have a temper. A quite magnificent temper when provoked too far and Sherlock should know, being quite an accomplished provocateur. And what with the whole flatmate-and-best-friend-gone-missing thing Sherlock knew that the Watson temper would be dangerously close to the edge.

But whether that particular message was true or not, it gave Sherlock pleasure to think about it. A dying man deserved some amusement, didn’t he?

He would have liked very much to hear the real messages. It would be like having some company in here. But his phone was gone, so he would never know what John had actually said. It also occurred to him that if this burial site could not be found, John might never know why he hadn’t answered. Sherlock would just be…gone. 

He hurt inside in a way that was new to him. The hurt was actually for John, because he knew how he himself would feel if the situation were reversed. [He would feel much worse, of course, because, well, just because, if, for example, John had simply set off for Tesco’s with a grumble and a wave as he always did. and never come back. If he were just not there anymore.] “I’m so sorry, John, please forgive me,” he whispered. “I didn’t mean to die today.”

There was no explanation, at least not one he could come up with, for the fact that in his last moments he was not thinking at all about the Great Questions of Life and/or Death. No, he was contemplating entirely trivial things like voicemail and smiley faces. That probably meant something very profound, but he couldn’t imagine what.

It was a rather irritating bit of irony that the man who lived to solve puzzles would die with one so important unsolved. There was no surprise in the fact that he would die irritated.

Dying, especially dying like this was already more than a bit not good, of course, but he was also angry that the bastard who was killing him was going to get away with all the other murders, too. He wished there was some way he could leave another and much better clue now, because, assuming they found his body, no matter how long it took, he could be sure that John [and maybe Lestrade, too, because it was his bloody job after all], but John, for sure, would track the son of a bitch down and make him pay. John would make him pay in a very fatal sort of way for shoving his best friend into this box and leaving him to die. All alone in the dark. That was the worst thing, the being all alone part. Knowing that still surprised him just a little, although probably it shouldn’t have.

It was getting much more difficult to draw enough air into his lungs, and what was even worse for Sherlock, harder to keep thinking. He tried, almost desperately to grab one more strand of thought from the darkness, but it drifted away before he could get a hold on it. He didn’t even know what the thought had been about. It might have been something important.

Furiously, Sherlock forced his mind to work just a little longer, until his last breath, because he wanted to die as himself. That was all. He just wanted to be Sherlock Holmes, Consulting Detective, genius, arrogant bastard, a man who had a friend, right up until the end.

A question appeared, white letters written in the darkness. 

 

//IF YOU WERE DYING, BEING MURDERED,  
WHAT WOULD YOU SAY IN YOUR LAST  
FEW SECONDS?//

“Good-bye, John,” he whispered.

That was all.

And since that was all, he decided it was time to let go and die.

The greyness began to descend. He didn’t mind all that much any more. This was boring. He was better off out of it.

Suddenly, there was a lot of noise coming from somewhere far away, but truth be told, he couldn’t get very interested in it. He shouldn’t be expected to care about noise, because he was dying and whoever was making such a racket should respect that.

Of course, Sherlock Holmes, the complete rationalist, had never believed any of those cheesy tabloid stories about the dying [or, more accurately, the close-to-dying] seeing a bright light guiding them towards some fairy tale heavenly home for the righteous. Rubbish, all of it, and since he was Extremely Close to Dying, he felt qualified to comment.

Had there been such a light, there was only one place he would have wanted it to guide him anyway, and that was back to a cluttered flat in Baker Street.

But just as he was closing his eyes, resigned but still fairly peeved about the whole thing, an explosion of brightness hit him like a physical blow and from somewhere far away a voice seemed to be calling his name.

Damn, he thought, does this mean I was wrong about the whole afterlife thing all this time?

That hurt. Seemed like a blot in his copybook.

Although why any heaven worth its name wanted anything to do with Sherlock Holmes was a mystery, it was all right. It was fine. At least if he was in heaven, he could be assured that the good man named John Watson would show up some day. That was extraordinarily pleasing.

It was still too hard to breathe and the light hurt his eyes as he squinted upwards.

Somehow, without him even noticing, the coffin had apparently been uncovered and opened. Maybe this was how freaking St. Peter did it, although had he given the whole thing even a moment’s thought during his life, he would have expected something a little grander.  
In all those ridiculous stories, as he recalled them anyway, the light was always accompanied by angels, and, bloody hell, against all the odds, here came one now. Sherlock didn’t believe in angels, naturally. They were simply mythical creatures.

Of course, to Sherlock Holmes the idea of a friend had been just as mythical until he had one, so it seemed anything was possible.

“Sherlock,” the angel said. “Oh, god, Sherlock.”

Angels undoubtedly talked to god all the time. Made sense.

This particular angel actually seemed a little clumsy, because he fell right into the coffin while trying to haul Sherlock out all by himself, although there seemed to be an actual host of others right behind him who could have helped. “I’ll do it,” the angel growled. 

//His angel growled?//

That was brilliant, Sherlock thought with something akin to joy. And he admired the determination, even if it did result in the creature sprawled on top of him.

It must be said, however, that he would have expected heaven, if it existed at all, to be a little better organized. The newly arrived shouldn’t really have awkward angels falling all over them, should they?

Now the growling, determined angel was straddling him, cupping Sherlock’s face in his hands. He didn’t know anything about angels in general, of course, never even having believed in them until about twenty seconds ago, but this one, at least, seemed to have very steady and warm hands. “Sherlock,” the unexpected celestial being whispered. “Sherlock.”

It was a nice welcome. Nice to have those so warm, very steady hands holding him after such a long time alone in the cold darkness. He completely forgave the earlier clumsiness, because some things were definitely more important than others.

More new data: He’d never imagined that angels could cry or that their tears would taste salty when a few landed on a human’s lips.

As the sweet fresh air flowed around Sherlock, he took in one great gulp and then another. Heaven smelled an awful lot like London, which was really as it should be. This was good. This was fine.

It was only then that his mind began to clear and his eyes started to work again. And suddenly with a rush of warmth that started someplace in the middle of his chest and radiated outwards to his whole body, he realised that the rather remarkably steady hands still holding him belonged not to an angel at all, but to his friend.

Of course. This was another miracle of the sort Dr. Watson had performed before, dragging the world’s only consulting detective back from the abyss when it seemed impossible. Not forgetting the biggest, most important miracle of all, being his friend so that life was worth being dragged back to.

“John,” he whispered. “I knew you’d come.” 

The previously mythical creature smiled.

fini


End file.
